United States Marines worshiping JESUS

[matte]

You cannot get better than this.

U.S. Marines singing and worshiping Jesus Christ and being overcome with the spirit:

[KTJ]

Hahaha.....no wonder America lost the Vietnam war....the US Marines were all fucked-up because they believed the god/jesus delusion inside their heads.

That's probably the same reason why America is in a perpetual war in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

They should stop believing all that delusional god stuff and accept the fact that their country is waning while China is on the rise.

Stupid Jesuslanders!!!

[matte]

The United States is not in decline, there is no evidence for it.

[pim]

Sure! Neither was Britain before WW1. The analogy is apt because just as Germany was the new kid on the block pre-WW1 wanting a slice of the international action which at the time was dominated by Britain and France (the French and the Brits told the Krauts to "pissen Sie off" and the result was WW1 and WW2, the outcome of which was a shattered Germany, France and Britain and the US dominating half the planet and the Soviet Union the other half, which just goes to show these things can pan out in ways you don't expect at the time), China is to the early 21st century what Germany was to the early 20th. China wants its slice of global action, starting with the Asia/Pacific and not stopping there. Currently it's telling the Americans make room and it's telling us not to get involved. All the indicators are that the only way the Americans can stop the Chinese is by blowing up the world - and itself with it. Short of that, it can't stop the Chinese. The great existential crisis of the United States today is the management of decline. Which kinda goes part of the way to explain the Trump presidency.

[matte]

I don't believe China will be a superpower.

There are other nations in Asia, such as India, which would prefer the United States remain the power in this world. These nations will assist the United States in keeping the status quo.

[pim]

You're in a distinct minority there, Matt, in thinking that the only scenario possible for Australia is with America as the global hegemon. But you contradict yourself when your scenario posits an American hegemony with India as a type of deputy sherrif. Not sure the Indians would find the idea of being America's "sepoys" to be very attractive. They've been there before: Clive of India, the British Raj, the Mutiny, the Black Hole of Calcutta. That ended with a polite fakir in a loincloth courteously telling the British their time was up. Gandhi was a well-mannered sorta guy. Next time I'd imagine the Indians won't be so restrained.

But you're right to bring up the Indians. In the sense that a war entered into by the Americans with the aim of containing the Chinese would end up with unexpected repercussions. Just as a Germany v Britain/France conflict in WW1 and WW2 opened the door to the Americans and the Russians, a war between the US and China would almost certainly bring in the Indians - and not in ways we would like or desire.

[matte]

The Indians wouldn't want to be a deputy sheriff, but what they don't want is China being dominant. They'll side with the United States.

It is more about ideas, the way nations believe the world should be. A lot of nations don't want a world under Chinese rules. They want them to remain how they are. There is an international order and nations will come together to protect the status quo.

We cannot live in a world where a nation can simply build an artificial platform within the Exclusive Economic Zone of another sovereign nation and then claim it as their own territory. China is on its own when it comes to shit like that.

[pim]

As home to 25% of the human species the idea of China being "on its own" sounds somewhat ridiculous.

[KTJ]

Feb 4, 2018 18:50:25 GMT 10 matte said:

I don't believe China will be a superpower.

Ah, yes....but you believe stupid stuff. Such as believing that the god/jesus delusion inside your head is real.

So it stands to reason that the stuff you don't believe is also wrong, 'cause basically you are a fucked-up individual.

[matte]

I believe the United States will still be the leading nation in 2100 :-)

[KTJ]

Then you are a silly, naive simpleton.

Just like all great powers before, America is waning.

By the middle of this century, they'll be a has-been power, just like Great Britain was by the middle of the last century.

[pim]

Both of you are speaking from a position of faith and prejudice. I would wager my retirement income, Matt, that you are no more gifted in the ability to prophesy than I am. Therefore you are as clueless as the rest of us about the state of the world in 2100. Could anyone living in 1900 really imagine how the world would be in 2018? So I won't debate your attempts at prophecy. KTJ on the other hand tries his hand at history and that's a different matter.

Great Britain was in decline before WW1 and she finished WW1 hopelessly saddled with war debts. One of the reasons the Great Depression of the 1930s hit Australia so hard was that the debts Australia owed the British banks which dated back to the infrastructure borrowing in the 1800s (eg the railways) had to be paid back to the Poms who in their turn were crushed under a mountain of WW1 debt so there was to be no negotiation on debt repayments by the Australians. Did you know that the Harbour Bridge had been financed by British banks in the 1920s and that debt wasn't fully paid off until the late 1980s?

Actually there was one individual at the end of the 1890s with the foresight to predict that the 20th century would be American and that was the Iron Duke himself, the bloke who knocked German heads together and unified Germany into a "Reich" under the Prussian King who became "Kaiser Wilhelm" of the German Reich. That guy was Otto von Bismarck who, retired and in his dotage during the 1890s, was interviewed by a reporter for the New York Times. As a sideline so many Germans had migrated to the US during the 1800s that it's recorded that the US Congress actually debated whether the US should adopt German as an official language. But I digress ...

The NYT reporter asked Bismarck, looking back on his long life in the 19th century and at the dawn of the 20th century, what was the most significant development internationally during the 19th century that would have consequences for the 20th century. Bismarck's answer? Die Amerikaner sprechen Englisch!

Unpack that one!

[matte]

Superpower status isn't just about money, it isn't just about military might (speaking of which, China is nowhere near the United States when it comes to military investment). Yes, these things are extremely important. But they are not the only things.

The British empire declined and Britain is not the nation it used to be. The same could be said about France, Italy (the Romans) and other nations and former empires. But these same nations (or what they have become) still rule the world. Europe and the United States have ruled this world in some form for centuries. The culture of the world is dominated by the United States and Europe. Politics is dominated by these nations.

China has nothing on the United States or Europe, or Western civilization. If anything, China is fearful of it. There is a reason why they censor things such as the media. They know that the free press is a huge threat to the society which is the People's Republic of China today.

Pretty much all China has is money and a population of over 1 billion people, which is actually in decline. They had to remove the one child policy due to the rate of population decline. I read a story the other day which shows that even the removal of this policy has not turned the tides.

If China has any chance at being a superpower, they have to have something more than money and cheap shit goods to offer the world. They simply do not have it. They don't have what the Western world has under their current regime. Who wants the censorship, authoritarianism and lack of free thinking which is what China is today? No thanks, and hardly anyone else in this world wants that.

In short, the world will be dominated by WESTERN culture for this century and probably beyond. People want freedom, they don't want what the politics of China.

I won't disagree. The United States has a few issues at the moment. But it'll sort itself out.

One last thing, it is false to say the United States is owned by China. It isn't. Most of the United States government debt is not owned by China. In fact, most United States government debt is INTERNAL to its own government. Different government agencies lending money to the government. They could easily rid themselves of the debt owed to China.

[matte]

Cultural, political and media hegemony, along with military might, are what really make the difference between an economic power and a superpower.

China might have the economic side (although, it is still an emerging nation outside the big centres), but its military is nowhere near as powerful as the United States on its own - or the United States along with its western allies combined. It certainly isn't dominant on the cultural, political or media front either. 

[KTJ]

I'd love to see China launch all of their satellite-destroying missiles.

The US military totally depends on satellites for everything these days.

It would be interesting to see how they'd fare if the Chinese wasted all the military satellites.

[matte]

I would love to see China adopt a multiparty, representative democratic system which respects human rights.

[KTJ]

[jody]

This is no different to Muslims praising Allah.

[pim]

Islam is just a different take on the Abraham myth. You say "Abraham", I say "Ibrahim", you say "Jesus", I say "Issa", let's call the whole thing off

[KTJ]

Both Muslims and Christians believe the god delusion inside their heads and therefore belong in the dark ages.